Happy Halloween

We got 101 trick or treaters this evening. It was fun, I still can't believe that we moved 6 blocks from 10th to 16th Ave. N and went from 13 kids to 100 kids. Here are some photos of the pumpkin that Scott got us (he bought the biggest one that he could find) and the other decorations.

Paris October 6,2007

We left London at 6:30 am to catch the train to Paris. We took the "Chunnel", it was interesting to go 300 km an hour, any underpass we went through the pressure in the train would change enough to pop our ears. When we were beside a divided highway we passed cars going the same direction like they weren't even moving. The front of the train was covered in bugs, and I am pretty sure maybe a bird ?

After a 3 hour train ride we arrived in Paris (their time) at 10:30 am. We also got a 1 day unlimited metro pass for Paris. We took the metro (subway) from the station Gare Du Nord to Notre Dame.

From Notre Dame we took the metro to the Eiffel Tower. We paid 4 eros each to climb to the second level of the tower, a total of 668 steps. We had such a beautiful sunny day (we lucked out again)

I love this photo of Scott because we did spend so much time at the edge looking down and around, just like little kids.

From the Eiffel Tower we took the metro to the Arc De Triumph, and walked down the Champs De Elysees. Of course Louis Vuitton and all the other shops were along the Avenue, this photo is about as close as I will get to owning anything Louis Vuitton (a small purse was about 600-700.00 Canadian $)

We took a small detour off the Avenue Champs Des Elysees to have lunch at a small cafe and then walked down the Seine River. It was very beautiful, very Paris like.

The Place De La Concord (basically a traffic square) besides the traffic has this gift from Egypt and of course the now standard Farris wheel (besides the London Eye, Manchester also had a large Farris wheel too).

At the end of the Champs des Elysees is the Louvre, this is grounds outside the museum where Scott and I relaxed for a while after our hike down the avenue.

The Louvre was having a free admission night the evening we were there. Of course we saw the Mona Lisa and the famous tome of Mary Magdalen from The Da Vinci Code (this we were very disappointed in - but then again don't base everything off of a Hollywood movie) The reason we were disappointed in the inverted pyramid was that we had to leave the Louvre to see it, and it was surrounded by shops (kinda like a mall).

We basically got to see everything we wanted to in Paris as we only had 10 hours there

London October 4 & 5, 2007

We left Manchester around 11 in the morning and took the train back to London's Euston Station, then the tub back to our hotel. It was a beautiful afternoon, so we took the tube to Covent Garden Market. This is the Punch and Judy pub at the market.


After wandering around the market we took the tub to Harrods. This was like any department store but very very very posh. There were at least 6 different levels. I even managed to haul Scott in the Tiffany & Co. department.

Friday Oct. 5th

After breakfast at our hotel we took the tube to Regents Park, which of course had the Rock and Roll Memorabilia store. Scott to do some shopping there while I just tagged along :)
After a walk around the park we took the tube back to Paddington Station to buy lunch, then walked to Hyde Park to enjoy the afternoon sunshine and eat our lunch in the park. It was so nice to relax that I caught Scott sleeping in the park !

This is the tree we sat under, it is a Chestnut the prickly coverings to the nuts were all over the ground and they hurt ! But we just kicked them out of the way and enjoyed the sights.

After lunch we walked to the Royal College of Music where some how our self portrait we took turned out to be the best picture of us together (even all the other pictures we got other people to take of us didn't turn out as good as this one)

Manchester October 2 & 3, 2007

We left London around 11 am to take the train to Manchester. We had to take the tube from near our hotel to the Euston Station, to catch the train. We planned on this, so we only took backpacks for our trip to England. They are much easier to take with you when you are travelling on the tube and on the train.

We arrived in Manchester at about 2:30 pm and walked from the station to our hotel. The Gardens Hotel was only a 2 minute walk from the train station and was located right on the main square of the city. This square had lots of shops, cafes and was the main bus and trolley stop.

The view from our room of the square
For our first night in Manchester there was a football match (soccer for us Canadians). Manchester United was playing Roma (Italy). You could feel the excitement in the air, as this was a very important match, something about the first time these 2 teams played each other after a match went violent in Italy. After dinner we tried to catch the match on tv at a pub but we could not find a pub with a tv, so Scott had a few pints.

Our second day in Manchester we walked around visiting a lot of the different markets, and just seeing the sights. These are just a few photos of the the buildings and pubs near our hotel.

The evening of our 2nd day in Manchester was the International Brewing and Distilling (IBD) Conference Gala dinner. This was the reason for our trip to England, as Scott wrote his IBD Brewing exams this past spring and got the highest mark in the world on exam #3, and the Gala dinner was where he was presented his award and cheque (500 pounds !). This is Scott receiving his award from the president of the IBD.

Our 2nd Day in London October 1, 2007

Our second day in London was very wet ! Our hotel served a traditional english breakfast - 2 eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, and either bean or tomatoes. We enjoyed the "free" breakfast and left for the day.

We first walked to Hyde Park again, this time to the west to see Kensington Palace.

Kensington is where Queen Victoria lived. We then took the tube to Abby road as you can't visit London according to Scott and not visit Abby road Studios. So here is the photo of Scott and the "Cross Walk". We realized once we got home that the photo was taken from the wrong direction compared with the album cover.From Abby Road we took the tube to Greenwich where the Millennium dome is. They are holding the opening and closing ceremonies here for the Olympics in a couple of summers. The company that is sponsoring this facility is a technology company called O2. So this dome is now called the O2.
From the O2 we took a bus to the Royal Observatory, to the "Beginning and End of Time" The Prime Meridian (or Greenwich Mean Time). At this point it was raining so hard and we are pretty much soaked.

After our soaking in Greenwich we took the bus back to the O2 and then the tube to the Tower of London. Thank goodness we got a week long unlimited transit pass (the Oyster card, we paid 3 pounds each just for the card then put money on them, so if anyone is heading to London and wants to use the Oyster Card let us know and you can take our cards and put your own money on them).

We didn't go into the Tower of London as Scott and I decided that 16 pounds (32 Canadian dollars) was too much. The weather had improved by this point so we walked down the river Thames across the Tower Bridge and along the river.

Once stop we did on our walk along the Thames was to visit Hayes Galleria. This is an out door mall with a large arched glass roof, it was quite interesting.

One of the other sights was the Globe Theatre, of course this is just a reconstruction but neat to see.
After quite a walk and another short tube ride we ended up at the London Eye. This was the one thing Scott and I both wanted to do/see. The ride around took about half an hour and the views were fantastic.

We ended our day by walking back over the river to Big Ben and Westminster Abby and taking the tube back to Paddington Station to our hotel. Our dinner was at a small Greek restaurant a few blocks from our hotel and of course we finished the evening by visiting a pub so Scott could have a few Ales.